When the ultrasound tech told us we were having a girl, my jaw dropped. My automatic thought was, “I am not very girly. I can’t even dress myself, much less dress a girl. I hate bows. How am I going to do this?” Joel put me at ease with a trip to Old Navy after our ultrasound. He was ready to shop for his baby girl. Once I saw all the cute dresses and outfits, I thought, “I can do this. She will always look cuter than I will. But I can do this.”

I loved being pregnant. My favorite memory was lying on the couch with Joel. As usual, he was talking and rubbing my belly. He leaned in to tell her a secret and BOOM! Baby girl hit him in the face. I’m not sure if it was a punch, kick, elbow or booty bump, but it was the funniest thing. Besides the constant morning sickness, that lasted my whole pregnancy; everything was great.

I found out I was pregnant in October 2011. I was 31 years old and this was my first, and I waited to tell everyone until December 2011, after our ultrasound, to make sure he was healthy. My pregnancy was going well until week 32 when I went in for early contractions and they found too much amniotic fluid; the level was at 26, and I was also dilated to 2 cm at this point. I was hospitalized for a few days and sent home with meds for the contractions and told to take it easy. [Read more…]

I’ve been wanting to write this for a while now, but it never seemed to be the “right” time. I have kept that night close to my heart but have managed to get a lot of the details out of order and confused in my head. My mom was thoughtful enough to take photos immediately following Caleb’s birth. It must have taken an incredible amount of strength to do what she did; looking at the photos I know it must have been difficult to hold the camera steady to capture those precious moments. I will forever be grateful to her. These photos tell a story that although I was present for physically, my heart was trying so hard to be somewhere else, where Caleb’s heart was still beating and where Caleb would hear our voices as we told him how much we love him… [Read more…]

In honor of my daughter, Anna, who would have been 1 year old this April 25th, I have decided to share her story in hopes of creating awareness and helping even just one person experiencing the death of a baby. [Read more…]

Our sweet baby boy passed away at 34 weeks gestation and was born asleep on Tuesday, September 20th, 2011.

Let me prefix this by telling you that from the beginning of this pregnancy, I knew he would be born early. I didn’t imagine it would be anything like this, but I knew. I was absolutely sure of it. Call it premonition or wishful thinking; call it what you want, but I knew. I didn’t tell many people because the initial reactions I got were that of either ridicule or doubt. Not that people were rude, but they probably were thinking I was nuts so I stopped insisting. I simply figured I’d have him around 37/38 weeks and not have to be miserable the last couple. [Read more…]